The Screenwriters Residency Program Experience: Austin Kase

Austin Kase is an award-winning screenwriter, director, and editor.  His feature film script, Wish You Were Here, was selected for the Bahamas International Film Festival Screenwriters Residency Program, and is in development to be shot this summer.

EXT. ROMORA BAY MARINA, BAHAMAS - SUNSET

White yachts rock peacefully in the blue harbor like toy boats in a bathtub.The echoes of seagulls 
and calypso music waft lazily through the air.

TWO GUYS sit across from one another at a sun-bleached wooden table, silhouetted against this Edenic scene.

VINCE GERARDIS (50’s), the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF GAME OF THRONES, calmly peruses his notebook,
completely zen in his loose Henley shirt and faded blue Dodgers cap. 

Nervously eyeing him from across the table sits AUSTIN KASE (26) a pasty screenwriter in
cheap plastic sunglasses. 

Vince slowly raises his piercing blue eyes from the page, meeting Austin’s gaze.

VINCE

I can really see this becoming a movie.

(pause)

You wanna spitball some TV ideas with me?

Austin’s already sunburned face somehow turns redder.  He falls out of his chair, overcome with joy.

If I were to turn my experiences at the BIFF Screenwriters Residency Program into a screenplay, and submit it to any other writing competition, it probably wouldn’t make it very far. “Reads like A Star is Born meets Willie Wonka, but somehow less plausible.” And yet, there I was, face-to-face with Vince Gerardis, one of the people who made the Game of Thrones TV show possible. He’d read my script. He liked it. He had notes. He wanted to learn more about me.

And that was just one of at least ten million surprising and downright surreal experiences I had over the course of the residency. For 4 days, 11 remarkably talented writers and I gathered on Harbour Island, BH, a spit of land just 3 ½ miles long where the preferred mode of transportation is the golf cart. 

From left to right: Vince Gerardis, Sean Covel, and Austin Kase

And crammed into those golf carts with us were some of the finest film industry mentors we could have asked for. Reading down the list: Sean Covel, the producer of Napoleon Dynamite (I repeat, Napoleon freakin’ Dynamite), the aforementioned Vince Gerardis, Matthew Helderman, CEO and founder of Buffalo 8 Productions, which has 3 films in Sundance this year, and Cameron Cubbison and John Rhodes, the co-founders of ScreenCraft. They had each read all 12 of our scripts, and we were given one-on-one sessions with each mentor to discuss our projects through the lens of their specific area of expertise.

I can’t adequately express how invigorating these sessions were. As a writer in the early stages of my career, I often feel like I’m playing a game of Battleship — each creative and professional decision is a shot in the dark, and it’s hard to tell if your next endeavor will be a stepping stone to bigger and better things, or merely suck up months of your life that you’ll never get back. But working with these guys was like having someone flip the board around and say, “For god’s sake, the submarine’s on B4!  Just sink it already!” It was empowering to learn the specific steps these successful people had taken to get where they are, and to have them offer personalized advice about what I should do next.

But what was even more striking about the BIFF residency was how perfectly tailored it was for a mixture of focus and play. Outside of our mentoring sessions and group discussions, we were given free rein to write, schmooze with our fellow screenwriters, explore the island, and enjoy its immaculate pink beaches and sapphire waves.

Despite its small size, Harbour Island yielded no shortage of local flavor, including (but certainly not limited to): drunken karaoke nights at a local dive called Daddy D’s, a visit to Ma Ruby’s, the restaurant whose orgasmic burgers allegedly inspired Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” and dancing like a madman in my first Junkanoo, an exuberant street parade held in celebration of freedom.

Through it all, we were deep in the heart of the Bahamas International Film Festival, furnished with all-access passes to the many cocktails, panels, and screenings (Jaws: The Revenge)  going on during the week. Each event practically invited us to imagine returning one day soon to screen films of our own.

Until then, I’m back to writing from the chilly climes of Connecticut, armed with pages of creative notes and a Rolodex spilling over with new friends and creative allies.  The view out my window isn’t what it was just days ago, but my outlook has never been sunnier.

Recharge your creativity in The Bahamas while networking with top entertainment industry professionals! You’ll spend 4 full days developing your feature film or TV screenplay at The Bahamas International Film Festival Screenwriters Residency Program, presented by ScreenCraft and Buffalo 8 Productions.  This distinguished program will provide SIX talented screenwriters with a mentorship, networking and screenplay development.

ScreenCraft will be announcing the new 2016 deadlines for all of the contests and programs, including another Screenwriters Residency Program, shortly.